


her locket on a chain

by wolfchester



Series: friendly savages [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, dean and jo have a baby!, everything in between, he's very cute, monster hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: dean’s away from home and he misses his wife and baby son.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jo Harvelle/Dean Winchester
Series: friendly savages [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977598
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	her locket on a chain

**Author's Note:**

> another spn fic i've had sitting in my google drive for almost 7 years !!! time to post them i think. a few more coming your way, sweet reader.
> 
> song lyrics & title are from 'her locket on a chain' by friendly savages.

_ she knows that i'll grow _

_ slowly as a raindrop down your window pane _

_ she knows that i'll hold _

_ her locket on a chain to keep the evil things away _

_ jesus, come briefly _

_ dismiss me or keep me _

_ just let me go home _

_ she’ll be burning a candle _

_ bundled under the mantle _

_ when the evenings get cold _

* * *

It’s another cold night in another musty hotel and Dean is missing his family.

Sam’s out buying food for them to eat tonight - Dean recalls him saying something about kebabs - and so Dean’s all alone, lying spread-eagled on a stained mattress, thinking of home.

Dean pulls out a well-worn Polaroid photograph from his jacket pocket and fingers the dog-eared edges with a quiet smile. His eyes take in the smile of his gorgeous wife, Jo, (God, he never gets tired of calling her that - his  _ wife _ \- after how long it took them to “get their heads screwed on straight”, according to Bobby) and their son, Jack William Winchester. Little Jack Winchester, the pride and joy of his father’s life, turning one year next January. Dean misses them, a lot. He misses the feeling of running his calloused fingers through Jo’s soft blonde hair, and the feeling of her lips against his neck. He misses holding his son and kissing his wispy-haired head, breathing in the fresh scent of baby powder and cotton. He misses the home-cooked meals Jo makes for him - much better than the take-out he’s about to eat (although he’s not complaining about that at all - food  _ is  _ food, no matter the quality).

Sam comes in the door laden with cartons of steaming, calorie-filled food and Dean’s stomach grumbles, temporarily forgetting thoughts of Jo’s kisses and his son’s smile.

He calls her every night when he gets the chance, tells her he loves her and that he misses her and Jack. A voice through a receiver is never a good enough substitute for seeing her  _ for real _ , for holding her body in his arms, but it does enough. It helps him sleep better at night to hear her voice.

She gets Jack on the phone sometimes too, and he’s still too little to make fully-formed words but Dean swears that his gurgles sometimes sound like “ _ dada” _ . Jo laughs when he tells her a funny story about a town they visited the other night and he swears he can see her smile through the phone.

But they have to hang up eventually, and Dean’s sitting again in a musty old motel room with a bed too small and just a sleeping Sam for company.

He falls asleep fingering the locket she gave him as a birthday present the year before, a simple gold pendant with a picture of Jo on their wedding day and Jack as a newborn on the inside. 

(It’s a bit of a girly present, yeah, but Dean doesn’t care because it’s from Jo.)

He and Sam had split up on a hunt to find a particularly wily Kitsune in the New York mountains, something they never do. It means days spent apart from each other with just cellphone contact, empty beds and empty rooms without Sam’s laughter and good-natured shakes of his head when Dean does something dumb.

It also means that Dean spends a lot of dark nights alone where he thinks about the ones he loves back home and how he can’t wait to get there. He knows Jo will put a light out for home when they do find their way back - a lantern sitting on their front porch like they always do.  _ “It’s so you’ll always find your way back to me,”  _ Jo said the first time she suggested the idea. Dean didn’t understand the significance at first. But now he sees lights in the mist sometimes and his mind flicks back to a front porch and a lantern and a farewell kiss on the cheek.

They have a deal, Jo and him. Not a demonic type of deal - Lord knows Dean’s had enough of those to last at  _ least  _ three lifetimes. But a deal that means they will never,  _ ever _ hunt together. That way, if one of them is killed on a hunt, there will always be someone looking after little Jack. 

Dean supposes its a morbid way of looking at things, but it prevents him from worrying about protecting Jo while they’re on a case, and it give him an incentive to get home safely. In the beginning, when they were first married, the ‘deal’ had been somewhat of a hindrance. Dean didn’t trust Jo enough to go out on her own, whereas Jo was under  _ no  _ circumstances becoming a housewife who did nothing all day but twiddle her thumbs and cook dinner for when Dean got home. 

It took a few heated arguments (and make-up sex, of course) for Dean to realise that Jo was indeed capable of looking after herself, and as much as he would worry about her every second of every day that she was out hunting and he was home, he had to learn to let her be. Dean’d always loved Jo’s free spirit, and he acknowledged that he didn’t want to be the one to crush her wings. 

Jo and Dean took turns - one hunt, then back home, then switch - and it worked relatively well until little Jack came along. Then they had to have another few arguments and another few sessions of make-up sex, before they came to the conclusion that Jo wouldn’t hunt again until Jack was old enough to not need her for breastfeeding anymore. It was Jo’s idea, and Dean thought secretly it was also because she loved her little boy and wanted to stay with him as much as possible, but didn’t dispute the thought.

And so they lived like this for a long time. Jo hunts, Dean stays home with Jack, they spend a good month together as a family until Sam calls with a job Dean just can’t resist and Jo’s looking after Jack while Dean is out hunting demons in some forgotten corner of Texas.

They miss each other more than could be imagined, but it means they both get to live out their lives and their jobs as well as keeping Jack safe and loved.

It’s all worth it in the end. Dean comes home to a lantern on the front porch, Jo’s arms around his neck and kisses on his cheek, and a laughing Jack with hands outstretched in the cradle down the hall.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @jjmaybank! i'm not in the spn fandom anymore but i do like a whole bunch of other fun stuff (outer banks, game of thrones, marvel, etc. etc.). come chat !!


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